Summary
- Wait for Skip button on ads for quicker viewing experience.
- Use ad blockers on browsers like Opera Air to avoid ads.
- Consider YouTube Premium to watch ad-free content at $13.99/month.
“Ugh, another ad.” How many times have you said this or thought this during a TV show? Probably a bunch, as we’ve all had to interact with ads before. The same can be said when you’re searching and watching videos on YouTube. You just want to watch your video, but you are forced to sit through, at least a few seconds, of an ad.
This may not be a huge burden for you and you’re happy to watch an ad. But many of us can’t be bothered to watch them. Time is precious during the day, especially if you want to watch a 40-minute tutorial on how to beat a certain level in a video game. You’ve got your priorities and don’t want to be forced to watch these ads.
You don’t always have to. You may not realize it, but how you are watching the videos on YouTube matters as much as what you’re watching. There are ways to skip ads on YouTube and not be forced to sit through them. It’s just about knowing how to set yourself up before you start watching.
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YouTube
YouTube is a streaming service and video platform that is great for viewers and content creators. You can subscribe to different channels and search through millions of videos.
1 Use a browser that has ad blockers
Google Chrome doesn’t let you get away with this
There are browsers that still have ad blockers, allowing you to avoid having to deal with ads altogether. If you’re a Google Chrome user, it has become much harder in recent years. As you can guess, Google, which owns YouTube, wants you to watch the ads and make money off of them. So, while it is a possibility that you can still use ad blockers, especially if the ad blocker software has been updated to match Google’s interface, it may not work with your current favorite ad blocker.
If you are running into issues with Google Chrome, try a different browser. Opera Air is a personal favorite and has a built-in ad blocker. You can adjust your ad blocker settings very easily. This just blocks the ads from playing at all, which makes for a seamless viewing experience on any video. Brave, DuckDuckGo, and Avast all have built-in ad blockers as well.
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2 Browse in a private window
This works as well but it hurts your history
Trying a private window or incognito mode in a browser can also do the trick. Private browsing won’t save the history of your searches and erases whatever you’re looking at right after you close the window. There is a private browsing option in pretty much every browser you’re going to find. Usually, you can find it by clicking on File and looking at the options that are below New Tab or New Window.
Ironically enough, if you don’t have YouTube Premium and watch enough videos, you can get ads for YouTube Premium, which will guarantee you don’t see any more ads.
If you choose private browsing, you will need to log out of your YouTube account in order for no ads to populate. This also means that you will lose your suggested videos that YouTube offers. So, if you know the video that you want. or at least what you want to search for, using private browsing is an option to avoid sitting through ads. An ad may sneak through if you watch enough videos after a while, so use this sparingly.
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3 Report or block the ad
This is ideal for ads you’ve seen a ton
Let’s say you want to watch the same video over and over again. You may be shown the same ad multiple times during your viewings. If you’re sick of watching an ad for the same product constantly, you can report it. This will help YouTube focus the advertisements it sends you but it will also eliminate that ad being shown to you. In order to do this, you must act quickly.
As the ad begins to populate, you’ll see a yellow bar going across the screen as it loads. This means that the first few seconds of the ads are loading before a Skip button populates.
- Hold down Tab and press Enter on your keyboard.
- This will cause My Ad Center to pop up. You can choose three options: Like ad, Block ad, and Report ad. You should first select Block ad.
- This will stop this ad from being shown to you, but it will not stop ads from that advertiser from being shown.
- If you click Report ad, you’ll be sent to a new screen where you can say why you want to report the ad. This includes reporting an ad for a legal violation or for violating Google’s policies.
There are other adjustments that you can make, if you don’t want to have Google tracking you as much. In My Ad Center, you can also choose your preferences for the kind of ads that you want to be shown. Google lists a number of topics that you can choose from to better narrow your advertising focus. You can choose as many or as few as you want. Google also uses your searches to build ad suggestions for you. You can put an end to that by turning off Personalized ads at the top.
